A Welcome and Some Explanation

Welcome! You found it! This is my blog. It’s where I can document my experiences, be uncomfortably honest, and probably disappoint some people. By now you’ve noticed the subheading under my name at the top of the page, and maybe you already knew all that.

Maybe you had to pause, process, and put up some walls before reading.

Maybe you’re compelled to read because any one of those descriptors qualifies your life experiences.

Perhaps your cynicism has peaked, especially with the line breaks after the last three sentences.

I get it. Now bear with me.

It’s been three-and-a-half years since my last post. Much has happened, and it’s time for a little resurrection; I’ve become increasingly aware of the need for voices on the issues for which I am passionate, but even more so for the need to document my experiences. These being experiences of change and progress and loss at the great cost of ecclesial community and – sometimes – relationships. This is not to suggest I have something wholly unique or as of yet unseen to offer the blogosphere – rather, I have a desire to articulate some thoughts and feelings in a way for which no other platform is suited.

If you didn’t know these things, then this is where you’ll come to better understand me, my journey, and how my experiences have shaped who I am today. My hope is through transparency and grace, these experiences and thoughts will positively shape you as we all journey together in Love.

Loss, just as much as joy, is sacred.

If you had asked me one year ago what my future holds or what direction I was headed, my answer would have been radically different than what it is. If you had asked me whether I would come around to affirming myself as a gay man, I would have responded with ambivalent negation.

If you had asked me what I believe, I would have laid out a fairly standard if politically progressive evangelical worldview.

Yet within just a couple months you would have found me wading through depression for the first time in my life, intensely anxious, obsessively reading anything and everything Google could give me on the intersections of sexuality and Christianity, and much like that very first crest on a roller coaster, descending swiftly into the “dark night of the soul” so many experience in the deconstruction of their faith.

It was the journey to affirming my sexuality that thrust me into a period of deconstruction, my first encounter with heartbreak, and with that came the traumatic experiences that often accompany an exit from evangelicalism.

When so much of your life is predicated on a way of seeing the world, a way of thinking, to question and subsequently exit that system of thought has profound implications for the totality of life. Community, individual relationships, political and ideological views, theology – it’s held together by a thread that seems to make sense.

Then you realize the thread isn’t what you thought it was.

It snaps and the mosaic you thought formed a beautiful, cohesive image shatters into ugly fragments both big and small.

Is that what they call mixing metaphors?

When your “worldview” dies, so dies your world.

I’m not expecting to change your mind or how you perceive objective reality; if you identify as a conservative, evangelical Christian, thank you for reading! You’re free to continue living as such.

If you identify as something completely other than that, thank you for reading! You’re free to continue living as such.

I will avoid my learned tendencies of apologizing for what it is I’ve experienced and believe. While my journey has left me with an insistence on epistemological validity, it’s also pushed me toward the need for the affirming and open eyes with which I should view another’s experiences.

This is a safe space that allows for the gracious tension of disagreement.